


William's True Tale

by fenmiu



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Backstory, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Imprisonment, M/M, Pedophilia, Psychological Drama, Psychological Trauma, Resurrection, Romance, Sexual Abuse, Shounen-ai, Starvation, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-22
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 14:07:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3211967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fenmiu/pseuds/fenmiu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronald doesn't know why William is so angry with him. It was just a little coffee spill on some old papers, right? So Alan decides it's time to share the truth about William's human life, or rather, William's tragic childhood death. How can anyone make a connection with a man who has suffered so much? WilliamxRonald</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Filth In The Beauty

**Author's Note:**

> This is my backstory for William Spears, something I've honed over the years out of my love and connection to this character. Please enjoy and critique! Based on[ an artwork](http://ceilonn.deviantart.com/art/The-Lights-Burn-Blue-It-is-now-Dead-Midnight-328543477) I made on 2012 and people wanted the backstory for.  
> Story (C) Ceilonn  
> Ronald's history headcanons (C) piefacemcgee.   
> Characters (C) Yana Toboso
> 
> P.S. Please keep comments like 'I have a different idea of William's life but this is nice' to yourself because that's kinda yuck.

  
  
"Damn it all! I'm gonna get fired, I'm gonna get fired!!"   
  
Ronald Knox's high-strung cries came echoing down the hall, raising curious eyes as he thundered through the cafeteria.  
Out on the observation deck, his friends were eating their lunch and catching the fresh air. There were a dozen other people sharing the space, and even though people were allowed to light up for a quick smoke, they didn't. Not while Alan Humphries was there, out of respect for the progressive illness that was inhibiting his breathing.   
  
Picking politely at an overpriced wheat-, gluten- and dairy-free buckwheat sandwich he'd gotten from the cafeteria, delicate Alan hunched over in his wheelchair while Eric Slingby, his tall, broad-shouldered and cornrowed Scottish husband massaged his lower back.  
The third companion at their group was Grell Sutcliff, leaning lewdly over the balcony as he chattered on.   
"For the dinner, I can't decide to wear the slutty red dress or the suit," he sighed, twirling a long lock of blood-red hair around one tapered finger. "William would prefer the suit, but..."  
"Mate...wear the bloody dress," Eric sighed. "If that's what makes you happy, y'know? Don't dress for someone else, especially if that someone is Will Spears."   
Grell's eyes glinted at Eric's turn of phrase. "Heh. Bloody~"  
"Don't ya wanna feel nice about your looks, especially considerin' Will couldn't give two shits about what you’re wearin’ anyway?"  
Grell huffed then, and was about to make a retort when Ronald came bounding up to them.  
  
"What's that about Will?? Did he say something to you about me?!" he gasped, grabbing Eric's water off the table and taking a few large swigs. "No, nevermind-- ah, fuck it--! I think he's gonna fire me, guys!"  
"Hold up, Ronald. Calm yourself. William wouldn't fire you for no good reason."  
"Nah, mate," Ron panted, flopping down into the spare seat and pulling his glasses off to clean them. "I did something really dumb! Well, I went into his office to deliver those sottin' file number forms he wanted, except... well, he was fast asleep! ... He looked so damn tired."  
"Will, sleeping on the job?" Grell exclaimed. "How naughty!" Ronald rolled his eyes.  
"Not surprising," said Eric, "he does a fuckton of work to make up for slackers like Grell. So what happened?"  
Ronald flushed ever so faintly. "Well...I....I kinda..."   
  
“Did you kiss him? I haven’t ripped any throats out today," Grell purred, though it was an empty threat.  
"Gods, Grell, shut your trap so I can tell the bleedin' story!" Ronald huffed, even redder than before now, and it drew a few chuckles from the married couple.  
"I got him a coffee," he continued, his slight freckles concealed behind his blush of mortification. "So he'd be more alert when he wakes up, y'know? A nice thing for one friend to do for another."  
"Except....?" Alan prompted him with an impish smile, a flicker of the feisty mind hidden behind a sweet face.  
  
Ronald carded his fingers through his blond hair, chewing his lower lip.   
"He had his head resting on one arm. When I gave him the coffee, I…I noticed some weird marks on his wrist, I dunno... And when I leaned in to get a closer look, I-I knocked the bleedin' cup over, the lid came off and the coffee totally drenched all these old-looking handwritten letters he had on his desk."  
Grell and Eric started howling with laughter at the mere thought of Ronald spilling scalding coffee into his boss's lap, and Ronald hid his face.  
  
"Will got really angry with me!" he whined, "And he said, 'get the fuck out of my goddamned office, Knox!' That can't be good, so...so he's probably gonna fire me..."  
Alan didn't find it half as amusing as the other men did. "William isn't one to sleep on the job, even if it was at work. I’m a little surprised, truth be told. Did he use those exact words, Ronald?"  
"Down to the last bloody expletive," the Welsh male replied with a pout, reaching for Alan's abandoned sandwich. "It sent chills down my spine. I nearly peed a little. Oh gods, what is this? Tastes like dirt!"  
He had to pause to spit out his bite of Alan’s buckwheat sandwich. "What do you think? Am I done for?"  
  
"If you burned his delicates, maybe," Eric snickered, and Alan slapped his hand gently.  
"I didn't!! I think he cared more about the stupid letters?" Ronald sulked, folding his arms. "Who do you think’s gonna take a happy-go-lucky scamp like me in when I’m homeless?"  
"You should apologize," Eric chimed in said, "before you start packin' your bags. Will's very reasonable, and if you just explain, he'll curtly inform ye that he doesn't fire workers over petty personal disagreements, especially not when we're so understaffed."  
"Well..." Alan said quietly, then clammed up. "N-no, sorry...I'm sure everything will be fine." Grell, who was sipping coconut water, raised one perfectly plucked eyebrow towards the young Brit.  
  
"I sense a secret~" he purred, "and I don't stop until I get my daily gossip."  
"It's not gossip," Alan snipped, adjusting his glasses with one slender hand. "It's William's personal business, and I'm not one to violate his privacy."  
"I'll violate /you/--" Grell began before Eric cracked his knuckles warningly.  
"It's my job!" Ronald protested. "Al, is there something I should know? Did his dog die today or somethin'?"  
Alan squirmed in his wheelchair, then leaned back against its cold, rigid frame.   
"Well, no...thankfully..." Poor Niets was a sweet dog, but had his better days past him.  
  
"Is he sick? Drug addiction? Someone reorganized his desk? Girlfriend left him? Forgot to floss? Grell hit on him again?" Ronald continued relentlessly, while Eric snickered away, and Grell smacked Ronald over the head.  
"C'mon, 'girlfriend'? Don't tell me you think he's /straight/?" Eric scoffed. "Will's gayer than--"   
"Enough already!" Alan interrupted, his cheeks going pink with frustration. "Are you listening or not?  
Ronald sat up straight. "Yes, sir!"  
  
"I'm quite sure those letters were from his human father, as today marks the anniversary of William's death," Alan said quietly. "There is nothing William cared more about in his human life than his father, and if you destroyed something as precious as those letters he keeps in his desk," he explained, "then a simple 'I'm sorry' mightn't suffice."  
Ronald had gone white as a sheet. "Aw, no," he uttered, and the others had gone rather quiet as well. "Were they that important? I...ah, fuck...."  
  
Grell pursed his luscious red lips. "Alan, since when did you become the resident expert on William? When I asked him about his death, like normal shinigami do, he clammed up tighter than a nun found with a cucumber, and then he kicked me and told me to get back to work. It felt good, though, ah--"  
Alan didn't respond, but Eric did. "Oh, Grellsy. You act as if you had no idea Alan and Will were a thing once upon a time."  
Ronald expected Grell to just implode at that moment, but after a long moment he instead just smiled toothily.  
"I do love a bit of gossip," Grell announced with a grin. "You did the do with darling Will~? I'll have to get the juicy details later." Thanks to the anger management classes Grell was legally bound to take, only 12 women would die that night.  
  
While the others stared in surprise, Grell continued, "So, William confided in you about his death? You are going to tell us now.....right?" The look in his eyes said 'don't tempt me any more than you have', and Alan, while not /afraid/ of Grell, really didn't want to push the unstable psychopath any further.   
  
"Please tell, Al," Ronald whined. "I...I gotta know how to go about this whole thing. I gotta make it up to him somehow!" The blond seemed quite distressed, and Alan couldn't bear it, especially when Eric chimed in.  
"I kinda wanna know too, love. There's a lot about Will that's a mystery. Why he honestly never seems to consume anything except coffee and cigarettes, why he's got those weird OCD tendencies, and....well, you know. I'm curious."  
  
"You can't tell /anyone/. I mean it," Alan groaned defeatedly. "William is a dear friend and his trust in me is hard-earned. I do not do this lightly." He thought for a minute, then said in a rush, "So, long story short, Will died in a-"  
"--Nice try, honeypie, but we'll have the long story long, if you don’t mind," Grell insisted, and so Alan was passively coerced into recounting the true tale of Will the Shinigami to his friends.  
  
\------  
  
'My darling, you are ten years old. I can't understand why you still want me to do all these things for you," sighed Michael Theodore Spears as he buttoned the front of his son's nightwear.   
"Bathing you, dressing you, reading to you until you fall asleep. You're such a smart boy, and yet you cannot do these simple things--"  
"Please," said William quietly. "I am highly intelligent for my age with an extensive vocabulary. I can do all those things by myself, it goes without saying. You know why I ask you to.”  
He curled his little toes into the dark carpet as Michael tussled the towel over William's wet hair once more.   
  
"I know, child," Michael replied, adjusting his glasses with an exasperated sigh. "But you're going to become a man soon, and sweetheart... I won't always be here. The sooner you can function without me--"  
"Wait…you…you're leaving?!" the child cried out suddenly, reacting exactly the way Michael had hoped he wouldn't.  
Oh, the juxtaposition between William's intelligence and his childishness.  
  
"Please, don't say you're going to leave me, you can't! You mustn't!" William panicked, flinging himself into his father's strong arms. Michael, feeling his son's fearful crying, picked him up and carried him over to his bed, tucking him in nicely.   
"Are you going away?" the child sobbed, and Michael sighed deeply.   
  
"William. You know you're my entire life; the sun and stars, the deepest ocean...My heart is filled with nothing but thoughts of you, darling. If I could choose between you and being gifted with all the knowledge in and of the universe...I'd choose you every time."  
  
"I love you," William choked out, slowly uncurling and sitting up to kiss his father, pecking him once on the cheek and again on the lips. Michael's soft brown-eyed gaze hardened slightly, and he lay William back down against the sheets.  
"I love you too, child. You know I'd do anything if it would make you happy. But first and foremost...I need to be a good father," he told him, the way he always did, because for some reason, William didn't entirely understand these boundaries.   
  
"Now, I'll warm you some milk to help you sleep. It's going to get very cold tonight."  
Little William made a sound so pitiful at that moment that Michael's heart lurched. Oh, this child was impossible.   
"Well, now! It looks like Miss Honeybear is out of hugs," he exclaimed, eyeing the teddy bear on the shelf that he'd given William when he was only three.   
"I'll fill her right up for you so you can hug her until I come back."  
  
Michael then took the bear and cradled her tight to his strong chest, mentally filling her up with every ounce of love he had for his son. William was watching him closely, his big eyes hopeful, and Michael gave in.   
Miss Honeybear received a small peck on the mouth, and William positively lit up.   
  
Michael couldn't help but smile a little, especially when William suddenly stammered, 'I-I'm ten years old, father...I don't still need Miss Honeybear..." yet he held her tightly all the same.   
  
Michael left the room in lifted spirits, but it faded quickly as his mind turned to the letter in his room that would tear their lives apart. Little William was never so easily rattled. It was almost as if he knew the truth.  
  
\---  
  
"Aww, nooo," Ronald exclaimed. "Will totally loved him and I ruined his letters!"  
"Oh, he loved him," Eric smirked, earning another light smack from Alan.  
"So, what's happening? Michael had a secret woman? A child with a secret woman?" Grell asked curiously, even stopping from preening his claws now to hear the tale.  
  
"Nothing like that," said Alan, interrupting Eric before he could insinuate that William's homosexuality was inherited. "No, sir. This was all the way back in the 1600s, at the start of the Second English Civil War. Michael was conscripted by the recently formed New Model Army, and sent into battle.”   
  
“...Then what happened to Will?” Ron asked. “I guess Will got all those letters during the war?”   
“No,” Alan replied, “William received those letters many years later, after his and his father’s deaths. It’s a tragic tale,” he sighed, “so listen up before I change my mind.”   
  
\---  
  
Michael left in the dead of night, unable to bear the thought of William’s face when he told him he was leaving and might not be coming back.  
Subsequently, William did not speak, sleep or eat for a whole week. The only time he did was when his mother--  
  
\---“You didn’t mention he had a mother!” Ronald interrupted suddenly, and Alan glared.   
“Do I look like a master storyteller to you? I'm sick! It’s hard enough just drawing breath, you know! Give me a break."  
  
Ron went bright red and shut up. “S-sorry. Continue.”   
  
“The only time William spoke was at the end of that week, when /his mother/, Catheryne Spears, did not wake up for three days. Scared she was unwell, William ran down to the local doctor and traded a valued family possession in return for his services.”   
  
\---  
  
“Mother, what’s wrong with you? A-are you going to be okay?” William whimpered when his mother woke up later that evening.   
“The doctor said it was merely a bout of women’s hysteria,” she replied, her pale blue eyes sliding open, eyes that William had inherited as a human. “I grieve for Michael’s absence, and seeing you wasting away was frightful. It pleases me to see you alive and talking again."  
  
“I’m okay now,” William insisted, holding her hand. “You need to get better. I'll do whatever it takes to make you better."   
Catheryne smiled at him; she was not usually one for smiles, but today she knew he needed it. "Just grow up into a big, strong, smart man. That's all I want for you."   
  
And William promised that he would.   
  
The next day, a man showed up at the door. He was not a handsome man by any standard; his one redeeming feature was his pale blue eyes, an extraordinary colour, and strangely familiar. Aside from that, he was unclean and had the belly of a man who drank far too much ale. He was balding too, and what hair he had left was lank and greasy. His teeth were yellow and rotted, his moustache thick and unkempt...William instinctively wanted to get as far away from him as possible.   
  
But he did what his father taught him; do not judge by appearances, behave in an appropriate manner at all times.   
  
"Good day," the young boy chimed, staring up at him. "How can I help you?"   
  
"You must be Catheryne's kid. I'm her half-brother. Name's Morris Fischer." He promptly handed his grotty coat to William and let himself in.   
Unable to bear the thought of it touching his hands, William dropped the coat instinctively, and in horror scampered to pick it back up.   
"I beg your pardon, sir, I'm awfully clumsy..!"   
  
Morris gave William a smug look and whispered, "You best learn otherwise. It ain't wise to drop a man's coat on the ground. He might get angry." Morris gripped William's shoulder, and the child stiffened right up in fear and downright disgust.   
  
"Oh, you're here," came the voice of William's mother. Breathing a sigh of relief when he was released, William hurried to her side.   
"Mama," he uttered, switching to French, ""   
  
"Lookit this lil' fruitcake, hidin' behind his mother's skirts," Morris commented with a barking laugh. Catheryne tutted at William, who straightened his spine with indignation.   
"Huh!"   
  
"William," Catheryne said calmly, "you're going to stay at your uncle's for a few days. Now go and get your good shirt on and pack your suitcase.”   
  
William looked up at her in horror.   
A day ago, his biggest concern would have been being asked to dress without his beloved father there.   
He hadn't met Morris Fischer then.   
  
"Don't you say a word," Catheryne warned her son. "Morris is blood. You /know/ how important blood is. Family always comes first. Right now I need you to stay with him for a few days while I take care of some business for your father. You can do that, and you won't cry, will you? You're not a child, are you?"   
  
"No, Mother," William responded, stiffening his upper lip and rotating on his heel. "I won't cry."   
Family comes first. Daddy comes first, he thought to himself. Not this slovenly pig, who William had never seen before in his life.   
  
It was not very well known that William, while completely adoring of his father, had a rather more strained relationship with his mother.   
  
Catheryne Spears was much more distant, cool, detached. One night at the age of seven when he got up late to use the privy, William overheard his parents discussing the fact that they didn't love each other romantically.   
The only reason they were together was because of mutual benefit, societal standing, and William. It didn't mean they weren't friends, because they were, and both shared a passion for science and knowledge. But whereas Michael had fit the father mould perfectly, Catheryne had never been a maternal woman.   
  
She loved her son, but now, standing in his bedroom alone and trying his damnedest not to cry, William wanted his father more than ever. Michael never made him feel like he was a disappointment, if he failed at something.   
Pulling out Miss Honeybear, William gave her a deep hug and breathed in his father's scent. She was completely full of his father's love and hugs, as well as that sweet little kiss that William would forever cherish.   
  
\-----  
  
"---Hang on, I'm getting rained on," Alan broke off, looking up at the dark sky above them and feeling a heavy raindrop splatter against his forehead.   
  
Eric stood up and took the handles of Alan's wheelchair.   
"Let's go back inside before it gets too heavy. Break’s nearly over anyway."   
Ronald groaned, running a hand through the black-dyed underside of his soft hair as Eric wheeled Alan inside and the rest of the group followed along.   
"I really wanted to hear the rest. I think I'm starting to understand why Will is the way he is."   
  
"You haven't the foggiest," Alan returned with a bittersweet smile. "And truly, the worst hasn't even started yet. Anyway, Ronald...Don't push the issue with William. Take it easy, work hard, and just give him a little time before you bring it up, alright?"  
  
"Just tell me," interrupted Grell as the work bell rang, "what /was/ wrong with darling Will's mum? She obviously wasn't grieving all that much for Will Sr.'s abrupt departure."  
  
Alan nodded, his smile twisting further. "She had cancer, actually. In those days, cancer hadn't been discovered, and it was forbidden to cut living people open for any reason. I can't help but think things might have turned out much differently if her cancer was slow-moving. She would have lived for years longer, and William might have, too. Instead, her cancer was pancreatic, and she died but a week later."   
  
Then he and his husband left, leaving the other two reapers stunned into silence.   
  
For the next few hours, Ronald could think of nothing but the tidbit of William's history that Alan had given them, and he yearned like nothing else to know the rest. But they each had their duties, and there was no chance to approach the man until training time.   
  
At the end of each work day, and providing they didn't have overtime, employees were expected to spend at least an hour over in the dispatch gymnasium honing their physiques. As Alan's condition deteriorated, however, he was no longer able to participate in most of the physical activities, and now spent most of training time sitting on the sidelines.   
He didn't have to stay, but Ronald suspected he came down each day just to watch Eric doing chin-ups.   
  
Training time was half over when Ronald finally made it over to the gym. The Welsh boy had worked his arse off catching up on paperwork, and yet when he finally summoned the courage to go and hand it in to William, his boss wasn't even there. Nor was his jacket on the Tuesday hook, (William had specific coat hooks for each day of the week) or any of the other hooks.   
Grell was slacking off as usual, complaining that he would break a nail. William always said that even if that were a valid excuse, employees were required to keep their nails short (3 mm maximum) and Grell's claws quite surpassed that. In addition, the women of the dispatch managed to complete training to satisfaction without breaking nails anyway, yet this didn't persuade Grell.   
  
Again, Ronald was convinced that Grell was content to simply watch the handsome men and women working out, and surprisingly enough, everyone was content with that. Because when Grell got involved with training, blood was spilled, and bones were broken.   
  
"Oh, that beautiful, tortured soul~" the redhead swooned as Ronald approached. "Look at him!"  
  
It turned out William had come down to training today, and right now was simply giving the punching bags a good workout.   
William certainly didn't come across as a tortured soul to Ronald's mind, but he had to admit, his boss looked damn good in that tank top, those shorts, those fighting gloves. William Spears' physique was perfection, and he looked magnificent with a little sheen of sweat across his bare muscles. Not to mention, he was damn focused, executing perfect attacks. Ronald was a little jealous.   
  
"I see you can appreciate a good man too, Ronnie~"   
Grell's insinuation snapped Ronald out of his thoughts, forcing him to turn bright red.   
"Fuck off," he mumbled, putting his gym bag down. "I was admirin' his technique."   
  
"I bet you'd like to see more of his technique," Grell returned, and Ronald retorted "Maybe I'll just ask Alan, he'd know more about it than you would!"   
Speaking of, Alan was paddling his feet in the indoor pool today while Eric did laps, and Ronald stomped over to him while Grell stood there looking scandalized.   
  
"I thought I'd see you again," Alan greeted as Ronald flopped down next to him. "You actually held off longer than I thought."   
  
"Yeah, whatever, I hurt my ankle so I thought I'd sit this one out," Ronald lied a touch defensively. "Since we're here 'n all, you might as well tell me."   
  
Eric paddled over to the two of them, tickling Alan's slender foot and making him giggle.   
"Tell you wot," he said with a grin. "Go challenge Will over there to a spar, and Al will tell you some more of Will's personal shit."  
  
"Eric!" Alan exclaimed, "William's private business is not something to make a game of! And besides, I’ve been having second thoughts..."  
“C’mon, babe,” Eric protested. “Just imagine!”   
Alan glanced over at William releasing his frustration on the bags, and chewed his lip.   
Eric knew that look and grinned.   
  
'Damn it...how did this end up happening?' Ronald thought to himself as he nervously approached William, each thunderous smack of kick hitting bag making Ronald's stomach turn. How could they have talked him into this?   
William would probably kick his skull in for what he'd done to those letters.   
'He's gonna kill me... I feel like jelly...damn it, why didn't I use the loo before all this...? Today fucking sucks...'  
  
"What is it, Knox?"   
Ronald jumped when he heard William's cold voice demanding to know why he was standing there gawking.   
"Oh! Um, well..." Ronald struggled to meet his eyes. "I was...kinda wondering if, like...well...maybe, if you felt like it...."  
  
Most people would pressure him with comments like 'Any day now??' but William just stared down his nose at his employee, and that unnerved Ronald all the more.  
  
William had dark circles under his eyes that Ronald hadn't really noticed before. Alan mentioned that as a child, William had icy blue eyes like his mother.   
Now they were a piercing polychrome green and yellow, as all reaper eyes were, but Ronald couldn't help but wonder what that blue was like.   
Finally William's patience wore thin, considering Ronald was staring silently up at him with doe eyes for no discernible reason.   
"For goodness sakes, Knox, out with it!" he barked. "Have you got something to say?"   
  
"Fight me!"   
  
Ronald blurted it out without thinking, and when every head in the gym turned to look at them, only then did he realize it came off like a threat. Even worse, maybe William was hoping he had been about to apologize, like he should have.  
  
"Fight you?" William asked coolly, adjusting his prescription eye-visors. "What a waste of time. Grow up a little." He gave Ronald a light shove, and Ronald tripped over the edge of the foam mat and landed hard on his backside.   
  
If that humiliation wasn't enough, someone called out 'William: 1, Ronnie: 0!' Everyone laughed, and Ronald was so mortified that he fled into the locker rooms.  
After a few minutes of hiding away, licking his wounds, Ronald heard someone come in. He turned to his locker, trying to make it look like he was just getting out some deodorant instead of hiding the fact that he'd cried a little.   
  
"Are you okay?"  
  
Ronald glanced in the mirror of his locker and saw Alan wheeling himself into the room.   
"How could I be okay?!" he whined, his voice cracking a little. "Will thought I was gonna apologize, a-and then, then I was just like 'fight me!' like I thought I was better than him, and I totally lost my fucking nerve and... I made such a fool of myself..."   
  
Ronald sat and hid his burning face in his hands, trying not to succumb to tears as Alan came and set a gentle hand upon his shoulder.   
"I'm sorry I let this happen, Ronald....but it's not the end of the world! You can still clear things up with William," said the tired Brit, his thin lips wearing a tender smile.   
Ronald swallowed thickly.   
"It's just the worst...he's so disappointed in me, and I really fucking like him!"  
  
Before Alan could respond to Ronald's sudden confession, Eric came skidding into the locker room with Grell on his heels.   
"A deal's a deal! Babe, time to spill the rest of the beans!"   
  
People who didn't know Eric and Grell would be surprised at their lack of sympathy for someone who was clearly upset. But Eric's husband was dying, and the Scotsman had quickly developed a habit of totally avoiding anything emotionally heavy.   
Except, it seemed, William's apparently tragic life story.   
Grell, meanwhile, was a psychopath who couldn't care less who was upset unless it benefited him in some way.   
  
Ronald nearly said fuck it; his boss would hate him even more if he knew they were all tuning in to The William Show, but curiosity won out and for one reason or another they all gathered around Alan Humphries in the locker room to hear the next instalment.   
  
\---  
  
"Don't think I'm gonna be cooking and doin' your laundry for you while yer here. You'll be earning your keep."   
  
William stood in the doorway of his uncle Morris' house, gobsmacked. The whole place was a pigsty, covered in empty bottles, rubbish, and cockroaches.   
The windows were cracked and so grimy that they couldn't be seen out of, and the drapes were tattered and stained.   
  
William thought himself a fool for possibly having expected any different. He was shattered.   
'Don't cry,' he told himself, balling his little hands into fists. 'It's only for a few days, then Mama will come for me, and Daddy will have come home too.' William had wholly convinced himself that this was the reason his mother had had to leave.   
  
"Simple rules," announced Morris. "You do what I tell you, you don't argue, and you don't fuck up."  
William blinked at the sudden expletive. "Huh!" No, he should have expected foul language too.   
  
"You only wash every three days, with one bucket of cold water. I want the place cleaned daily, but you stay right out of my room. The basement too; it's not for little boys, and if I catch you down there, God help you." William shivered fearfully, unused to such threats. It was starting to dawn on him now that he was stuck in this hellhole.   
  
"You'll be staying in the loft up there," Morris said with a lazy gesture to a rickety wooden ladder. The loft was really just a few wooden beams with dirty, stained blankets tied over the whole thing to form the floor.   
William climbed the ladder carefully and peered up. It was totally covered in cobwebs.   
This was no room, there was no trace of the privacy he'd been hoping for, and it was probably full of spiders.   
  
"Nice and cozy, innit?" Morris said from below, grinning a vile grin.   
"Don't say your uncle Mo never did nothing for ya!"  
William felt trapped between a rock and a hard place; this filthy, odd-smelling loft, or his vile uncle directly below him who seemed like he was looking right up William's shorts.   
  
He decided the loft, and as he reached the top the ladder, something large leapt out from under a pile of blankets with a hiss.   
  
William screamed and propelled himself backwards, landing hard on Morris's dirty floor with a thump.   
"It's just a possum!" his uncle announced as the startled marsupial leapt to the ground and sprinted out the open door. The young boy's composure shattered and he began sobbing where he lay, rolling onto his side and covering his face with splintered hands.   
  
"Kid! Grow a pair already!"   
  
Little William kept crying, though, and Morris nudged him with an open-ended boot. "Oi! Billy! Man up! Shut your mouth already!"   
"I want to go home!" William wailed. "Daddy--"  
  
Something lashed out and struck William across the cheek. He uttered a thin scream, and promptly stopped crying when he looked up to see his uncle holding his belt in his hand and leering down at him.   
"I said shut the fuck up, ya snot-nosed pansy!"   
  
William's cheek was on fire, he was sure he was bleeding.   
"You hit me," he mumbled in disbelief.   
  
"You get punished if you don't do what you're told," said Morris, spitting on the ground. "In my house you'll do what I tell you, we clear? Now get your pissy lil self off my floor and go to bed."  
  
It was only 6:00 pm but William stood up obediently, trembling and holding a hand to his cheek.   
"You hit me," he said again, as Morris put his belt back on.   
  
"Listen up, Billy. You need discipline to turn a boy into a man. You've been living with your faggot papa for too long and he's left a dirty mark on you."  
  
William swallowed thickly.   
"F...faggot?" he muttered, feeling like he might be sick.   
  
"Yeah, faggot. You know. Pansies, fruitcakes, fairies, queers. Cocksuckers."   
William blinked incomprehensibly.   
  
"Men who fuckin' bum other men!"  
  
"Could...could you be referring to h-homosexuals?" the boy asked innocently, and Morris made a sound of disgust.   
"Damn right," he spat, "an' the Bible says they'll be burnin' in Hell. This is a Christian house, son, and I'll make sure to cleanse that filth right outta you."   
  
William felt frightened, understandably, and hurried back up into the loft, where he pulled a scratchy blanket over himself and hid in the corner. At least Morris seemed too fat and heavy to get up the rickety ladder, so William pulled Miss Honeybear out where she couldn't be seen and cradled her tight, taking in all of the hugs that had been stored up within her, and eventually crying himself to sleep.   
"I'll fill her right up for you so you can hug her until I come back."  
  
He'd said that, right? So...he was coming back...right?  
  
\---  
  
"Jesus Christ!" Eric exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. "This story's getting fucked up!"  
  
" 'Getting' being the operative word, unfortunately," said Alan, and Ronald moaned.   
"It gets worse? So Will doesn't get to go back home after a few days, and see his Mama, and his cunt of an uncle doesn't get executed?"   
  
"You're so daft, Ronnie," said Grell pleasantly, who was really starting to enjoy this story. "His mother is only a few days off death, if what Alan said earlier was true."   
  
"It is," Alan verified. "See, the way William told it, Catheryne had been hiding her illness, and knew she was dying fast. When Michael was conscripted, she did the only thing she could for William: Send him son off to live with his uncle so he wouldn't become one of those street urchins."  
  
Ronald stared blankly. "And she said it was only for a few days but she meant forever."   
  
"Yes," Alan sighed. "Would you rather I not go on?"  
A unanimous protest arose, and so Alan once more was coerced into continuing.


	2. Distorted Instability

"So, as you know," Alan recapped, "William would not be going home, and his uncle was a sick bastard. William was the one who ended up doing all the cooking and cleaning, and basically any other whim or chore his uncle saw fit to drop on him. If William messed up, or the chore was beyond his capabilities, he'd be punished one way or another."

\--  
"What are you doing?" asked Morris two days later, watching William repeatedly dousing and relighting a single lantern.   
"Nothing," the boy replied quietly, his eyes fixed on the light. 

"Doesn't look like nothin'. Stop it already."  
William bit his lip nervously, but didn't cease his actions.   
"I said stop it," Morris warned, hauling his paunch to his feet. Drunk as usual, he wavered quite a bit. 

"I can't, uncle. I'm very sorry, but I can't," William replied anxiously. 

"And why the blazes not?" 

"I....I need to do it 66 times," William whimpered as Morris approached him. Fortune had not smiled on William today, because Morris was a superstitious man and obsessive-compulsive disorder had not been not discovered yet. 

"By God, that's some'a Satan's business right there!" Morris exclaimed. "You trying to summon the devil?!"

"No! No, I promise!" William protested, and managed to pull his eyes off the lantern.   
Too late, however, because at that moment Morris belted him across the side of the head with the light. 

"I knew your father was one'a those godless heretics! I oughta go to the police, they'll have him executed!"

Had William been with a sane man, he might have debated why someone would believe in a cruel, hateful being over proven science.   
But being hit over the head with a hot lantern disrupted ones rational thoughts, and he just screamed instead. 

And then, Morris pulled William over his knee and yanked the poor boy's trousers down.   
William let out a strangled gasp of mortification.   
"If you're not learning to behave, my punishments aren't bad enough, are they?" Morris said thoughtfully, his grimy hands passing lecherously over Williams's backside and then proceeding to belt him with the lantern again and again. 

When his uncle was done, he threw William aside into some newspapers, and a few startled roaches scurried away.   
The child's lower back and posterior were full of deep purple bruises and cuts where the metal had torn the skin, and he ached to his core. Something didn’t feel right.

"Now, what do you say?" Morris asked, as William retched on the floor. 

"Th-thank you, Uncle, f-for teaching me to be a good boy," the child gasped out in between sobs. 

"Very good, Billy. Now get out of my sight."

Billy, Billy, Billy. There wasn't a name on earth that William loathed being called more; even to hear it made him cringe.   
Barely able to walk, he managed to stand up, pull up his pants, and hobble over to the ladder so he could hide up in the loft. 

As he cried himself to sleep, he tried to understand why his mother would send him to a man like this. Blood was blood, but this man...it wasn't fair...he had no right to call himself family. 

Two days with Morris Fischer had already severely shaken William psychologically, and the thought even entered his mind that his parents hated him all along and sent him away.   
Maybe...maybe they really wanted Morris to teach him how to be good.   
William was in too much pain to question how illogical it was, and eventually passed out. 

He did wake up in the night, however, desperate for the privy. His lower back throbbed severely, a pain so agonizing it reduced him to tears.   
Staggering down the ladder without having an accident was a Herculean effort, but by the time he got outside to the privy (a tin box with a hole dug inside) his little trousers were already quite wet.   
Staggering in, he got them down and began to relieve himself. It got worse though, because in the gleam of moonlight coming from the hole in the roof, the stream of liquid he was releasing was practically red, and the pain was immense. 

The blows to his kidneys had done this, of course, but William had no idea and naturally feared he was going to die.   
He collapsed against the side of the privy when the ordeal was over, sobbing to himself.   
Only another day, he tried to tell himself as he drifted off to sleep outside, wet and icy cold. Just survive another day, and then everything will be alright. Mama will come for you, and Daddy will be there too. They love you. You are loved, William. You are loved. 

\--- 

"What...William really said that...?" Ronald asked quietly, feeling unexpectedly emotional.   
"Aw, Ronnie!" Grell exclaimed. "What kind of man are you? You act like you've never been kicked so hard in the kidneys that you peed blood before."  
Ronald stood up abruptly.   
"I need a bit of a break from this," he muttered. "Excuse me." 

He could hear Grell and Eric poking fun at him as he hurried out to get some fresh air. Fate had other plans though, because it was still raining quite a bit, so in the end Ronald went to the men's bathrooms to splash some water on his face and calm down a little.  
Entering the bathroom, a distinctive clicking sound could be heard.   
As fate would have it, there stood William Spears by the light switch, flicking it off and on again slowly, deliberately. 

Ronald was just brimming with pity for the man. It must have been so hard, being as afflicted by OCD as he was. And yet, William would not want his pity, not an ounce of it.   
"Sir," he called softly, and William raised his head. 

"What?" the older man returned monotonously. "What could you possibly want, now?" 

Ronald approached him, his heart pounding as he placed a hand on his shoulder.   
"Will, listen--"  
"--Please don't touch me," William responded; not impolitely, but as a serious request.  
"Right, sorry," said Ronald, quickly drawing his hand back. "Yeah, look..." He took a deep breath. "Today's just been one mistake after another for me. I do things with the best of intentions, but keep messing up." 

William switched the light again, then his eyes flicked over to Ronald. "Hn."

"I ruined some important things of yours," Ronald said quietly, scuffing his foot against the tiled floor then pausing in case it annoyed William, which it did.   
"And I just wanted to let you know how sorry I am. I really, really am." Ronald wasn't even sure he was apologizing for the letters anymore. 

William seemed to be contemplating how to respond, certain that there was no way Ronald knew the full extent of the damage. Also, apologies were difficult, and so were people.   
"You don't have to forgive me!" Ronald added quickly, trying to look casual as he leaned against the sink counter. "It just had to be said." 

The William that Alan described in his story was so far from the man standing in front of him. Head Supervisor William T. Spears was the picture of composure and strength, and reapers both idolized and envied him.   
They had no idea what he'd gone through, and what it took to forge such a man. 

Yet there /was/ some visible connection to the child from Alan's tale. Right now, Ronald knew he was witnessing a small moment of weakness on William's part, because here the reaper stood, flicking his lights just like the boy had done, succumbing to his OCD.   
Did moments like this ever make William think back to that day he'd been belted over the head with that lantern, thrown over his uncle's knee and beaten until he peed blood?

William had wordlessly gone back to flicking the light switch, and Ronald's eyes just pored over him. Something else too; now that Ronald was up close, he finally got a good look at the numerous scars marring William’s alabaster skin.

Shinigami didn't have scars; when they were reincarnated after death, their bodies were made anew. In addition, wounds that weren’t inflicted with magical weapons always healed. So these…had to have been done with something that would last.

"Truth be told," Ronald added after William's silence, "I came to give you a cup of coffee. I kinda saw those weird scars on your arms, and, well, when I leaned in..."   
William's head snapped to him, his sharp brows drawing together. Ronald felt the hair on his arms rise, and he knew he was treading on some mighty thin ice. 

"...You've made your point," said the brunet coolly. "Is there anything else? I'm busy."

"I can see that," Ronald replied, though immediately regretted it. "N-- I mean, it's totally cool that you're flicking the lights, I get it, you know?" He grinned nervously and ran his hands through his hair.   
"You got your thing, you know. Everyone's got their thing. Me for example, I'm awful afraid of storms--"

"That will be all, Mr. Knox," William cut in before Ron could embarrass himself any further.   
"Right! Okay, gotcha. I'll be on my way, then!" Ronald announced, flustered, and headed to the door of the bathrooms. 

"Ronald." Turning around, the blond looked back at William systematically flicking the bathroom lights. 

"Sir?" 

"The coffee was thoughtful." 

\---

"He really said that?" Grell gasped. "What a compliment! Oh, I'm so jealous! Should I go spill coffee on him too?"

"Forget it," said Eric, "that trick's already been used now." 

The setting sun was invisible behind dark rain clouds, and the employees of London Dispatch were preparing to head home for the day. Most of them pooled into the portal room, where a communal portal took reapers back to their homes in the London City of Reapers. 

"You know, I've known Will to flick lights for up to three hours," the Scotsman added with a grin, and turned to the vending machine beside him to get a snack.   
"Sometimes he spends two hours washing his hands, or extending and retracting his scythe. When he first lectured at the academy, he often rewrote the same line on the blackboard five times before he was happy."

"William's OCD is rather severe," said Alan, sipping his water, "but he's come a long way to make sure it interferes with his work. And usually it's not quite so debilitating. I just think that today, he's feeling more out of sorts than he'd like to admit." 

"He's still down in the gym, isn't he?" Grell wondered. "My poor darling. He needs someone like me to distract him."

Ronald bristled at the thought.   
"Leave him be," he muttered.

Alan nodded in agreement. "It's better off that way," he added. 

"So when can we hear the rest of this story?" Grell asked, tying his long hair up into a knot, and Alan squirmed. 

"Well, it gets a little bit vague from there," he confessed. "William's uncle started...well, molesting him, and William said he preferred to block that out of his memory and didn't want to talk about it."

"For fuck's sake," Ronald exclaimed. "Who can blame him?! What a hypocritical cunt! 'Oh man I'm so Christian, homo stuff is yucky but I'll touch little boys anyway!'"

Alan reached for Eric's hand and squeezed it uneasily.   
"Alright, listen up, because I'd like to go home soon but I know Ronald would just explode if I left it off here." 

Ronald flushed guiltily and settled in to listen like Alan knew he would, because now he knew how Ronald felt about their boss and he couldn't take that back. 

\---

It had been three weeks since the lantern incident.   
Three long, nightmarish weeks. 

William didn't know why his parents hadn't come for him, but Morris told him often that he had to stay here for when they did come back.   
Then he would lock the front door and go out boozing and wenching some more while William stayed at home.   
Morris decided that William was an asset; the boy cooked and cleaned and was fun to fuck around with, so he wouldn't get rid of him just yet. 

William's kidneys had finally healed over, but all in all he had lost 13 kilograms and was completely covered in bruises and other wounds from the numerous times his uncle had abused him.   
Morris Fischer was more frightening than William could believe. Occasionally, before his kidneys healed, William would need to get up in the night.  Sometimes he would find out that Morris was still conscious. Sometimes Morris would sit in the centre room, staring into a looking glass and applying whorish makeup to his face overtop white paint. William began to shake as he watched him turn into some kind of…well, he didn’t know the word for it.   
It was messy, outlandish, and it scared him. Sometimes Morris would catch William watching, and he’d just grin and stare, chuckling lowly.  
The thought of what the man would do to William in this state terrified the boy, so he hid back up in the loft and tried to hold on for the rest of the night. Usually he could only wait about an hour at most before inevitably disgracing himself.

As it happened, Morris abused William numerous times while wearing that makeup, and William grew terrified whenever he saw it on.

Naturally, the boy’s mental health declined. He longed to talk to someone, but his uncle was always drunk, and Miss Honeybear's hug levels grew lower and lower each day until he could barely feel anything except her fur against his cheek. 

One time, when Morris had chained William up outside for the night (this was after he'd forced the poor child to drink a full bottle of mead, and William had naturally thrown up everywhere) a most unexpected visitor came by.   
"O-oh, hello!" William exclaimed softly. A hungry stray dog poked its muzzle at the fence, then cautiously slunk in through a gap so tiny that only the dog's emaciation allowed itself to slip through.   
The malnourished creature quickly perceived William to be friendly, and licked once at his hand, sniffing around. 

"Are you hungry?" William asked with a sniffle, shivering in the cold and wiping at his running nose.  
"I-I have some salted pork; I've been s-s-saving it for when he throws me out and I get hungry. But you look like you need it more."   
The speckled dog snapped the dried meat up right away, its mangy tail beginning to wag again.   
"You poor, starved thing..." William ran his hand over the dog's head and gave it a hug, then it went on its way.

Then, each day whenever Morris was out at the tavern or passed out, William crept into the backyard and left a little food and water for the dog. Most days he even got to see it again, and he would talk to it about how he missed his father, his books and his old life while the dog eagerly ate up his meal. 

Seeing the dog became the highlight of William's days, it gave him something to get up for, but he lived in fear of Morris catching them and killing the dog, which he would. Morris would brutally kill it to set an example.   
As a result, William forced himself not to name his newfound friend, and the day came about quickly that the dog had finally gained enough weight that it couldn't fit through the hole in the fence anymore. 

In a way, William felt relieved. 

"Get down here Billy, and let a real man show you how it's done!"   
Peering over the edge of the loft, William witnessed his uncle with a tavern wench bent over the kitchen counter, fucking her hard. 

William obediently climbed down, however, biting his lower lip as his uncle hefted up the woman's skirts and pounded into her from behind. William was surprised his beer-belly didn't get in the way. To his horror, he noticed Morris was wearing the white paint on his face along with the whore makeup.   
The woman on the other hand tried to remain quiet, but it was clear that Morris was hurting her. William had his doubts that this was entirely consensual. 

"Convincing," said the boy quietly. "You have shown me the beauty of heterosexual love, uncle." 

"Hetero-what? I'm showing you how to fuck a bitch!" 

William folded his arms, tilting his head to get a better look at the woman's face.   
The scarlet woman looked tired and miserable, out of fight. Her makeup was smudged and her abused breasts were falling out of her corset. After a few sickening moments, William's drunkard uncle let out a final grunt then pushed her to the side, done with using her. William watched her fall into some newspapers like he himself had done so many times, then he dropped down at her side, nervous but convinced.   
"Go home," he whispered. "Please. Get out of here."  
She stared despondently back at him.   
"You're very pretty," he told her. "You don't have to spend to tonight like this. Go home and wash yourself in warm water, then eat well and sleep by the fire."  
Something stirred within her, and she slowly got to her feet, pulling her clothes back on. 

"Where d'you think you're going?" slurred Morris, slopping mead down his front and making his crazy makeup run. "We ain't done yet, woman." 

"Go," William urged her. "Don't let men like this use you! You're better than that!"   
The bar wench glanced between them, then gathered up her skirts and fled through the front door. As Morris approached William, the boy watched her go with great envy where he could not. 

Then the first strike of the belt lashed across William's back, and he crumpled to the floor. 

"You wanted to take her place, is that it?" Morris spat at him, red in the nose from alcohol and anger.   
"That bitch is a fucking whore! You give her money and she spreads her bloody legs! And you know what?!" he growled, hitting William again with the belt and this time making his nose bleed, "She cost a lot of money, so you're going to make my time fucking worthwhile, you dirty little boy-slut!"

William touched the blood trickling over his lips, no longer flinching as he was lashed again and again. 

Something inside him snapped, and he glared up at the man with narrowed eyes.   
"So is that 'how real men do it', uncle? They pay money to prostitutes? Is that your idea?!"   
He felt himself seeing red. "You're disgusting!" he cried, pushing himself to his feet and directing a kick straight to the man's groin. 

"You're vile, filthy--! The mere sight of you makes me so sick!"   
Then William turned tail and bolted for the front door. 

As William ran, he could only think: he was going to be free now. He would run and run, as far as possible from his loathsome uncle. He would find a farm on the outskirts of London and become a farmhand, or assist an old researcher with his work, anything to earn money. He would do anything it took to find his beloved father once again, and stay by his side forever. 

Then a full bottle of mead struck William in the back of the head and he was knocked out cold in the front yard. 

\----

"That's it?!" The unanimous exclamation was directed at Alan, who politely crossed his legs. 

"Correct."

"You can't leave it here!" Ronald protested, rocking anxiously. "I'm serious!" 

"I have medication to take, so I need to go home," Alan replied a touch curtly, and again Ronald flushed with guilt.   
"We'll pick up again tomorrow, then?" he asked hopefully, and Alan at least agreed to that. Everybody went their separate ways afterwards, and Ronald went home to a sleepless night. 

In William Spears' case, when he'd finally satisfied his compulsions, he left the Dispatch office and made a special trip out. 

On this day, 373 years ago, William's human life had been snuffed out. So each year on this day (once he had indulged a compulsion enough to warrant a change in his strict schedule) William ported out to a non-descript cliff on the English coast.   
This cliff was small and hidden away by thick forestry, but the formation itself was bare apart from soft grass and a few headstones marking graves where soldiers had been buried.   
Clutching a little bouquet of lilies in one gloved hand, William exited his portal and stowed his scythe inside his jacket. 

The sun hadn't quite set, and it wasn't raining this far out of London. William closed his eyes and took in the scent of the sea like he always did, then approached the grave of Michael Theodore Spears. 

Kneeling down neatly, William scanned the engraving on the headstone that he'd read so many times.   
MICHAEL T. SPEARS.   
K.I.A.  
ABLE SOLDIER. CARING HUSBAND. LOVING FATHER. 

Those words always brought the smallest smile to William's face, and he gently set the lilies down on Michael's grave. 

"Hello again, father," he said quietly to the headstone, the sea breeze ruffling his neatly combed hair and pushing his dark fringe into his eyes.   
"It's your son, William. And it's that time of year again. I always hate today, father...truly, I do...as irrational as it is to hate a day. But it...it was harder than usual." 

Bowing his head, William carefully removed his black leather gloves, and pressed his fingers into the dirt topping the grave. 

"All those letters you wrote to me...Today a young employee of mine destroyed them on accident. I can't even read them anymore. And I feel..."   
He had to search within himself to figure out exactly what it was that he was feeling. Emotions did not come easily. 

"I believe it hurts. I don't /have/ anything left of you now. That was it....that was all I had left, and now I feel so lost..." 

\----

Little William awoke in a room so dark that at first he was completely blind. After a few minutes, of course, his eyes adjusted, but this room was not familiar to him at all. 

There was a deep throbbing at the back of his head, and he was sporting a severe migraine from the mead bottle, which would have made him actually a little grateful for the darkness if he weren't so afraid. 

Uncle Morris had caught him when he'd tried to escape, of course, so this cold, dark room with no light was perhaps that basement William had been forbidden from ever entering. 

The child stood up and circled around. The ground was dirt, and the walls were made of icy stone blocks that were wet in some places.   
William was breathing quickly and shallowly as he felt around what he perceived to be a dungeon. All 4 square meters of it. There was an alcove behind the staircase, William discovered, but otherwise he was in an cold, dark box.   
There were only a few items in the dungeon, whatever had been in here previously had been moved out to make room for its new resident. 

William found some oil in a can, a box of dirty old potatoes covered in sprouts, a short cord, and a whole nest of spiders. None of these would help him escape.   
Feeling his way over to the steps, William climbed up and up until he bumped his head on what had to be a trapdoor. Attempting to push it open yielded no results, naturally, so he started knocking on the wooden hatch until his knuckles bled. 

"Uncle!" he called shrilly. "I-I'm sorry about what I did! Please let me out of here!" William knelt on the steps, whimpering softly. "Please! I'm...I'm scared...please punish me, please teach me how to be good...anything, just don't make me stay down here..." 

After a couple of hours had passed, William heard the latch slide open, and the trapdoor lifted. The room was flooded with light that positively blinded the child, exacerbating his migraine and making him so dizzy he nearly threw up. 

"Down, Billy!" Morris warned, stepping on the child's fingers until William scurried back down the stairs a bit. "You stay away from the door, or you won't get fed." 

"Uncle, please--"

"Shut your cunt mouth," Morris snapped back. "You're more trouble than you're worth, and I oughta leave you to rot. But I won't, cause I'm a good Christian man. You'll be fed twice a day, or whenever I feel like it, if I've got any food I feel like sharing." 

William trembled fearfully on the step.   
"If you don't want me here, why don't you let me go?" he asked hoarsely, blinking back tears. 

"Well, you'd go to the police, wouldn't you," Morris sneered. "Can't have that." 

"I wouldn't!" William protested. "You'd never see me again, I promise!" 

"I said shut up!" Morris dropped William's food (a hardened piece of bread and a water skin) down the steps. "I'm sick of you and your fucking rich family shitting on me. You're staying down here until I say otherwise!" 

William shuddered. "But Uncle," he sniffed as something occurred to him. "This isn't sustainable! Th-there's no...no waste management." Morris blinked.   
"There's nowhere to /go/!" William cried, his face reddening. "T-the ground is too hard for me to dig holes, and I--"

"Oh, right," Morris interrupted suddenly. "Almost forgot."  
William was stupid enough to get his hopes up, and was rewarded by a metal bucket smacking him in the face and knocking him all the way down into the dirt again. 

"There you go," Morris announced jovially. "And one last lil' present for ya!" William was only just opening his eyes when something hit him in the chest. 

In the light, it was obvious.   
"M-Miss...Honeybear?" Her head had thoughtfully been separated from her shoulders, and she'd had warm ale tipped over her, effectively eliminating all traces of William's father's scent.   
William promptly burst into loud, broken tears, and Morris chuckled as he drew the hatch closed and drowned him in darkness once more.   
The child withdrew into the same trancelike state he had when Michael first left, and he didn't move for three days. 

Squalor and filth became William's entire life. He only had one pair of clothes, and soon it didn't matter whether he had a bucket to piss in or not.   
Sleeping on the floor made it worse; he just got dirtier and dirtier.   
Within two weeks, his hair was full of lice, and his skin was so filthy he could lean against the wall and be completely camouflaged. 

William got food once a day, if that. It was all he looked forward to now, after endless hours in the dark. It wasn't even the food that made it special, it was the light, and the small reminder that he existed.   
In solitude, it became all too easy to forget. 

Then one night, William dreamed for the first time since coming to Morris Fischer's.   
It was the best possible thing he could have dreamed of.


	3. The Final Art is Your Dead Face

William lay on the ground, swathed in darkness and corruption, trapped in tentacled bindings of filth.   
"William?"   
That voice...William would know it anywhere.   
"Father...?" Turning his gaze upwards, William saw light. He saw a figure swathed in white, in cleanliness and purity. Such a contrast to his defiled self.

It was Michael Theodore Spears, in every ounce of glory that William pictured him.   
William reached out, as did his father, but they were too far away. He began to struggle against his bindings, grasping one on his wrist and using all his failing strength to peel it off, but his skin was torn with it.   
"Father! It's really you! Have... Have you come to take me home?" He daren't hope.   
"Sweetheart..." Michael gave him a sad smile. "This isn't real. This is only a dream, and I can't save you. Would that I could." 

William grit his teeth, tearing up instantly. "How could you leave...?! Don't you see what has been done to me?! How could you let this happen when you said I-I was your sun and your stars?!"   
He began tearing at his bindings, pulling free from more and more tentacles, and inching ever closer to his father. More and more skin was torn along with it, but he would have done anything to be closer, even as blood dripped down his arms. 

Oddly enough, there were tears in Michael's eyes too.   
"I don't have much time," he said softly. "Please, William, my darling boy. You must not give up. You need to escape this place and run. Run and live, child. It's the only way we can be together." 

William bared his teeth in anger.   
"We could already have been together!" he sobbed, ripping at the last of his bindings and flinging himself up into Michael's arms, hitting at his chest.   
"But then you left m-me! You did this!!" 

"William, no," came Michael's strangled voice. "No, my love, I--" 

"If you're not going to help then go!!" William wept, then held up his bloody arms. "Just look at what I've done to myself to be close to you, and you haven't even tried to reach me!! Don't act so caring! Even if I did come to you, you would still never...you'd never..."

"William, I could never-- please understand! I don't have long--" Michael stammered. "Listen to me--"   
"I am alone and you made me this way! I'm never going to be clean again-- I'm a dirty, filthy boy-slut, and I'm going to die in this fucking hole, and it's your fault! It's all because of you!"   
Then William released him and fell, all the way back down into the darkness, and the last thing he heard was a man's strangled sob before he woke up.   
~~  
\----

Yesterday's rain had persisted today, heavier than ever, and instead of looking out into the gloom, the four reapers had gone up to the Viewing Room.   
This was a whole storey entirely dedicated to a magical floor that allowed reapers to see anywhere on Earth they desired, through use of the Navigator.   
Someone had left the Navigator set to one of Hawaii's currently erupting volcanoes, so the reapers watched that like a television while they had their break.

A heavy, eerie silence had descended over the group as Alan wrapped up the end of William's tale.   
For a few minutes, the only audible sounds were a quiet rumble from a Hawaiian volcano belching ash into the air, and the quiet hiss of Alan taking a few breaths from his oxygen mask. 

"So...what now?" Eric asked, after a moment of shaking his head and going, 'Oh, man.' 

Alan glanced over at Ronald, who looked so deeply lost in thought until he suddenly spoke.   
"Hey, Al... How did you 'n Will break up?"

Of all questions, Alan hadn't expected this one. He slowly leaned back in his wheelchair and took a deep breath, and they could all hear his lungs struggle with it.   
"Well, it's difficult to explain...but it's how William wanted it. After 8 months together, he just up and told me one day that he didn't want to be in a relationship. I mean...he broke my heart, but that was a long time ago. We patched things up and I still consider him one of my dearest friends."

"But why would he do that?" Ronald questioned, brows furrowed in confusion, while Eric chewed irritably on a hash brown.   
"Well, we were both young then, and only a decade out of Academy. I was sort of emotionally needy, too...and I required a lot from him that he wasn't stable enough to give, if that makes sense."  
The look on Ronald's face implied that it didn't. 

"If it wasn't clear to you," Alan said patiently, "William had a lot of emotional baggage from his childhood to work through. He decided he needed to do it by himself, and that's what he did. I think he deserves your respect."

"He's over it now, though?" Grell asked lazily, picking blood from last night's massacre from his nails as he peered into the floor. 

"What was that?" Alan inquired. 

"I asked if he was over it," Grell replied. "I mean, emotional baggage is cute from a distance, but I don't want to get up close and personal with it."

Alan frowned. "A traumatic past will never fully go away. William is only human, Grell. He'll always be affected to some degree."

"Ugh. I sat through this entire sob story and I don't get anything I can use to my advantage? Will dies in a basement. Waste of time." Grell stood up, flicking his hair majestically, but Ronald could only glare.   
"You're callous as fuck," he remarked, and Grell laughed.   
"Clinical psychopathy, dear. Mnn, I've heard Undertaker is delectably messed up! Maybe I'll turn my attentions to him! Mnn, number one idol, Grell Sutcliff, out!~" 

"Psychopath is damned right," Eric muttered under his breath, and Ronald let out a frustrated sound. 

"It wasn't a waste of time at all. You tell stories excellently, Al, and there's a bunch more questions I'd like to ask, but I've got a date with a cute girl."  
Alan raised a confused eyebrow, then Ronald grinned and clarified, "Trips down the stairs and breaks her neck. Me 'n Will gotta nab her soul." 

"You and William?" 

"Oi! Unlike y'all, I'm not a thousand year old bloody Senior Reaper. I'm only a Junior, and Will's always my supervisor...unless he palms me off to Grell." Ronald stood up and sighed.   
"Oh, please, please don't palm me off to Grell." 

"You'd like Will to palm you off," Eric teased, and Ronald flustered.   
"So funny! Where do you come up with these?!" he snipped sarcastically, flipping his bag over his shoulder and stalking off towards the elevator.   
\-- 

Upstairs, William Spears startled awake with a small gasp.   
Having that dream always hurt. It amazed him that he remembered it so vividly, even from so long ago. It amazed him that he still woke with genuine tears in his eyes, and it always made him feel so guilty. 

"I didn't mean it, Father," he mumbled under his breath, then glanced around his office. The door was slightly ajar. Had someone been in here? Goodness...caught napping by someone twice in as many days?   
William wiped his eyes, cleaned his glasses and neatly combed his hair back into place. He needed a cup of coffee and a good cigarette.   
He always thought of his childhood around the time of his death anniversary, and it took a few days before the nightmares wore off, but then it would be business as usual and all would be fine.   
What time was it? Oh, soon it would be time for the reaping with--

There came a knock at the door, and Ronald Knox poked his wavy blond head in.   
"Aw, good, you're up!" he said cheerfully, approaching with a hot cup of coffee for William and placing it oh-so-delicately upon his desk. 

"Is this déjà vu?" William demanded in disbelief, the faintest touch of pink in his cheeks. "I prefer to get my own coffee, you know. Do you enjoy watching men sleep? You were in my office just now; don't pretend otherwise." 

"Oh, n-no, sir!" Ronald flustered as William inspected the beverage carefully. "But you were sleeping again, and I didn't want to disturb you. You were...dreaming."

William scowled. He'd been told he sleeptalked too much, and...damn it all. 

Ronald was certain William had been dreaming about his father, and it sounded uncannily like the one that Alan had been describing a while ago. What were the odds?

"You ought to work on the 'not disturbing people' thing," William said flatly, pulling on his leather gloves. He took a sip of his coffee, obviously deeming it satisfactory, which made Ronald happy. 

"I had a question, though..." Ronald then asked without thinking, desperate to connect to his boss on a more personal level after hearing his dark and tragic tale. William glanced at him, just /daring/ him to say a word about that dream. 

"Your middle initial...What does it stand for? I always wondered." 

William frowned, not anticipating this.   
"It...stands for 'Thomas'," he answered, brushing his coat off. "Whatever you'd want to know that for."

Ronald stared at the floor, biting his lip.   
"'Thomas'...not... 'Theodore', s-sir?"

William glared suspiciously, then stepped forward, looming over Ronald in an instant.   
"You stop it," he ordered. "Whatever you're trying to do, just stop. Back off!" 

"It's none of my business, I'm sorry!" Ronald replied hurriedly, genuinely expecting he was going to be hit. How harshly William reacted when someone dug at those layers of ice. What was he so afraid of? That was someone was going to hurt him?

"I'm sorry for upsetting you-- er--" Wrong choice of words-- "Sorry for overstepping my bounds. I don't want to do that! I just…I'm sorry! You just...in your dream, you said 'Theod--'" 

William tilted his head back arrogantly. "That name was not in my dream dialogue! Don't try to lie to /me/. Now I don't know who you've been speaking to," he said coldly, "but you had no right to enquire into my personal life, /employee/. Now kindly take your leave. Sutcliff can handle this reaping with you." 

Ronald looked like he'd been slapped, taking on a wounded animal look.   
"I'm not just an employee! I'm your friend, o-or I'm certainly trying to be! Look at you, you're goddamned miserable, you're always tired, and you're lonely. You push everyone away because you just can't move on from your past and-- and your weird Oedipus complex!"

William stiffened up, icier than Ronald had possibly ever seen him.   
"If you're not out of my office in five seconds you won't even /be/ an employee, Knox," he said darkly, then turned his back to mask his composure. He heard the door close moments later, and Ronald was gone.   
William closed his eyes and sat down at his desk, gritting his teeth.   
It hurt. 

\--

It hurt. Down in the darkness, little William had cried for many hours after waking from that dream.   
"I didn't mean it," he whispered over and over again. "Please come back...please..."

But now William had to face the harsh truth: his father, neither dream nor reality, was coming for him. However, Michael's words resounded deep within the suffering child:

'You need to escape this place and run, child. Run and live.' 

All William had left in this place was his intellect, and so he put it hard at work to try and formulate an escape plan.   
Morris always stepped on William's hands or kicked him in the face if he was too close to the top of the stairs at feeding time.   
William did not have physical strength on his side, so rushing him would be futile. 

There had to be another way out, he told himself, and after much searching, an idea presented itself. 

Three hours later, Morris came to give William his daily bread. Often it was the meanest, blackest chunk, or just a crust, and when he gave William water, half the time it was not water at all. Sometimes it was stale beer, or something much, much fouler. And indeed sometimes Morris just hurled a cup down at him and it spilt, so William would hurriedly suck it all up from the dirt before it dried into mud. 

The cup came in handy today. 

When Morris opened the trapdoor and peered down, William was nowhere to be seen. Instead, there was a gleam of light shining down onto the ground, and piles of upturned dirt could be seen. 

"Billy? Where the fuck are ya?" Morris slurred, putting one gout-ridden foot on the first step.   
Instinctively, he feared William had somehow dug his way out. He'd made it to the surface, somehow! 

"Oi!" It all happened so rapidly. Morris began the descent down the stairs, and as he did, William pulled taut the small cord across Morris' foot from where he hid under the staircase, standing atop the box of potatoes. With a shout, Morris tripped over the cord, and slid down stairs William had slicked up with oil. Morris hit the ground with a thud and didn't move.   
Unconscious? Good.   
William sprung, taking a running jump to leap over Morris and climb to freedom. Everything was going excellently...until a cold hand wrapped around William's ankle, another around his leg, and both twisted in opposite directions. 

William's ankle broke like a twig, and he shrieked as he was dragged back down the stairs into Morris's furious grasp.   
The sheer agony William was in fuelled some kind of adrenaline rush though, and he kicked and bit and clawed at his uncle's white-painted face.   
"Fuck you! Just die already!!" the child sobbed, but Morris wrapped his hands around William's throat and began to squeeze.   
William did the only thing he could: he jammed his dirty fingers inside one of Morris's eye sockets and tore the eyeball asunder in a splash of blood and flesh. 

Morris let out a roar of agony and anger, getting to his feet and clutching his bloody eyehole. 

"You filthy little /cunt!/" he shouted, kicking William in the stomach with all his brutish strength. William crumpled with a weak gasp, knowing his battle was lost.   
"You're going to die down here, cocksucker! By the way, your precious Mama is dead and your father is never coming back because he hates you! Enjoy getting to fucking rot down here!"

The trapdoor closed, and it never opened again in William's life. 

Writhing in agony and shame upon the ground, William covered his face with his hands and sobbed pitifully, but these were far more tortured sobs than what he'd released on his first night at Morris Fischer's.   
William had no more means of escape; the hole through which light streamed was merely a drain he had uncovered using the cup as a digging tool. That hole was surrounded by stone on all sides and William could barely fit his hand in it.   
He would not be able to run anymore, with his broken ankle. The sense of failure and disappointment hit down on him hard, as well as Morris's parting words. His mother was dead, and his father...hated him. 

What else was there to fight for?

\---

"Grell...um...Will said you had to take me out...for the reaping," Ronald muttered when he finally found Grell in the ladies' room. 

"Can't, darling. There's been an emergency." Grell ran his fingers over his chin. "I simply cannot be seen by a man until I remove this unsightly stubble."

Ronald was still shattered from the cold berating he'd received from William and he wanted to go home to his one-room apartment and drink it off. The slight to his masculinity went unnoticed.  
"Since I don't have a supervisor, I can go home then, right?"

"God, you can pick up one hussy's soul without being supervised, can't you?" Grell replied irritably. "The soul has to be collected, newbie."

"Wow, fine!" Ronald snapped back, puffing his cheeks. "Thanks for the help!" The blond stalked out, while a pair of women heading into the bathroom gave him scandalized looks.   
"Oh, what?!" he snapped at them, brushing past and going to pick up his scythe. 

Ronald was mad. Mad at Grell, mad at Will, but mostly mad at himself.   
He'd ruined any chance he'd had with William the moment he'd talked shit about Michael.   
'What bloody right did I have?" he wondered as he opened up a portal with his deathscythe and travelled down to the human realm, arriving at a farmhouse fifty kilometres out of London that for some reason still came under London Dispatch Jurisdiction. 

William's bond with his father was more profound than Ronald could ever hope to understand. And in the case of Ronald the party boy, the ladies' man, for all his so-called friends...it was possible he was even lonelier than William anyway. 'Bloody hypocrite.'

Stepping through the portal, he immediately was hit by heavy rain. "Aw, shit," he said miserably, grabbing his scythe and running towards the house. Just fucking perfect. 

\---

"Come in."   
Alan Humphries appeared in the doorway of William's office, nudging the door open and wheeling himself over to the man's desk. William stood over at the window, watching the dark clouds rolling in with low growls. 

"Is this a bad time, William?" he asked gently, and William turned away from the window to meet his eyes. 

"It is not ideal," the Head Supervisor confessed, returning to his desk and taking a seat. "Let me take a guess why you're here."

Alan looked down, chagrin.   
"You know already. I...I told them. I shouldn't have...I betrayed your valuable trust in me."   
William remained silent, watching him calmly. 

Alan continued, "It was for Ronald's sake. I knew what yesterday meant to you, and when he told me about the letters....I needed him to understand this was no joke. And with Grell around, the whole thing spiralled out of control."

William sipped the coffee Ronald had given him half an hour ago; it was lukewarm now, so he discarded it quickly. 

"Do you have any idea how hard I work to keep Sutcliff's nose out of my personal life?" he asked with a sigh. "And that Ronald...How do I know he doesn't trade secrets for kisses at parties?"   
Alan nodded guiltily.   
"Believe me, William, I know. I'm really sorry, and you have every right to be angry at me. But trust me when I say...I did it because I saw someone who wanted to make you happy. That was the only reason I kept allowing myself to share your story."

"To make /me/ happy?" William echoed. "Alan..." 

"When was the last time you let somebody get close to you? It hurts to still see you pushing everyone away. I thought...it was time to give someone the key."

"If you're referring to Ronald," said William after a long moment, his open expression corroding into a frown, "that boy misspoke...about /him/." 

Alan's breath caught in his throat and went into a coughing fit. Immediately William was at his side, taking the oxygen mask and offering it. Alan took a few gulps of precious oxygen and sighed. 

"William, I'm so sorry. I don't know why he'd say that to you, but...sometimes he just blurts things out without thinking. It would mean a lot to me if you gave him another chance." 

William knelt beside him. "You're very thoughtful, my old friend," he said quietly, lowering his dark lashes. "I'll think about it." 

"He was really looking forward to that Death. Why don't you take him out for that?" Alan suggested hopefully, looking down at him with a tender gaze. 

"I...assigned Sutcliff to go with him," William replied a touch guiltily. 

"But I just saw Grell hitting on Micah on my way over here.....Oh." 

"Oh." William stood up abruptly. Damn that flamboyant fool. 

"Is there any chance Ronald just went home instead?" Alan asked, turning his wheelchair on the spot as William took his jacket off the Wednesday hook. 

"Not when his name is on the Deathscythe Acquisition form I just received," William replied shortly. 

"Well...It's a simple death," Alan stated. "Maybe it's time to let him handle one or two on his own." 

"You don't understand," William replied firmly, pushing his fringe out of his eyes. "Alan, that boy told me he's afraid of storms." At that moment, thunder crashed behind him. 

"And?" Alan replied softly, a faint smile on his face as William passed. 

"Well, it poses a liability, don't you think?" William called back as he strode from the office. 

\---

It was impossible, thought Ronald, to feel more alone than when you were sitting beside a dead person.   
The girl who had fallen down the steps and broken her neck still lay where she'd landed, soaked in a pool of her own blood. 

The sight was downright macabre, and frankly it rather depressed poor Ronald right now. He felt sorrier for himself than he did for the girl. 

He'd become aware of the thunder ten minutes before the death, but it steadily became worse and by the time he had to collect the soul he was a shaking mess.   
"Don't wanna end up like Alan," he mumbled to himself as he pierced her with his scythe, watching the glowing strips of Cinematic Record spill out of her body from the source of the strike. "Cut the record. Collect the soul. Cut the record. Collect the soul. Ah, fuck...stay cool, Knox, you got this..." 

Thunder crashed overhead now, and he literally dropped the To Die register into the pool of blood.   
"Shit...shit, shit, shit.."   
He knelt down as picked up his register in one trembling hand, the lightning and thunder outside making him jump at every sound. He had given way to fear, but the job had to be done.   
That's what William would do, if he was ever afraid. Always get the job done. 

"Maggie H-Houseman," he enunciated, trying to drown out the sound of the thunder with his own voice as he scrawled messily across the book.  
"Sex: Mff-Female! Age: 19. Cause o' Death: B-Broken f-fuckin' neck.."   
Ronald cried out as the storm shook the very foundations of the house, and he clapped his hands over his ears.  
"Shit.....Fuckin' shit, you can do this..!" Storms always felt worse than they were. Anxiously wiping his eyes of tears, he continued.

"...due to falling down the stairs. S-soul: M-mediocre...m-mm... Status---" 

One of the shingles on the roof broke free and was blown through the window, shattering glass everywhere. Ronald narrowly missed it, crying out as it flew overhead and he dodged. As he hit the ground, Ronald's thick black glasses went skittering across the floor.   
Blinded by tears and the typical weak vision of a reaper, Ronald had to pull his gloves off and feel through the broken glass for his things, practically hyperventilating as thunder roared overhead. 

Then he heard glass crack nearby, and a familiar voice.   
"/Honestly./"

Ronald felt the frames of his glasses suddenly being pressed against his cheek, and he reached up frantically to put them back on.   
The world began to slow down now that he could see again, and there was William Spears, kneeling in front of him with a small frown. 

"Will," he choked out in disbelief. "S-save me."  
"Save you, Mr. Knox? You want me to be your knight in shining armor? I refuse to be anything quite so cliché. You can save yourself." 

William thrust the To Die register into his hands. "Finish your job, Junior Reaper," he ordered briskly. Ronald wanted to cry.   
"Sir, I-- I can't..!" 

"Why not?" William demanded, getting back to his feet. Gazing up at him with saucer-wide eyes, Ronald thought he looked like some powerful weather god, all sorts of debris swirling around him. 

"Scared. I need help." 

"Help yourself!" William shot back, and Ronald flinched. "I'm not here to baby you! Now what's the status of that soul?" 

The wind blew the book open, and Ronald struggled to find the page.   
"It's, u-um, Collected--"

"Write it down!" William ordered, and Ronald flinched again.  
"It's Collected!" the blond youth cried, scrawling it across the page. 

"Now sign your damned name!" 

And Ronald did, sobbing the entire time. He had to save himself. There wouldn't always be someone there to help him. 

\---

After that trapdoor closed, the final, gruelling three months of William's life began.  
The small light coming from the drain hole kept him sane for a while. He could see himself, his body, and he knew he was real. The light was what kept William crawling over to that box of mouldy potatoes every other day and forcing one of them down. Eating the rotten vegetables kept him alive for most of the three months.   
Potatoes contain almost everything the body needs, apart from calcium, explaining why William lived so long down there without food from Morris. 

He had water too. Using the bucket Morris had given him for waste, he collected water whenever it rained as it dripped in from the drain. If it didn't rain for a while, he might have been lucky enough to get some water trickling down the slimy stone walls of his dungeon which he would desperately lick up. 

William passed his days by drawing on the walls, pictures of himself being rescued, being held, being loved. He recorded his thoughts. He counted each day by the look of the light, and scribed it on the wall. He prayed to every God he'd ever heard of, to hear his prayers and send help. He prayed to the Devil, but nobody and nothing came. Certainly not his precious father. 

And one day, finally, the potatoes ran out. With it, so did the last of William's hope.   
As he began to starve, not even the light could keep him sane anymore.   
Sometimes he would sit in the alcove, twitching in the darkness. Sometimes he dragged his nails down the stone walls until they were worn down to bloody stumps.   
Sometimes he screamed himself into a fit over and over again, wishing for death. The walls always stared back at him, and his hopeful words painstakingly inscribed now mocked him.   
'Daddy will come to save me.'

No....no, he won't, you stupid little boy. 

The writing on the wall, before reflecting the plea of a desperate child, now reflected his crippling sanity. 

'im so hungry' ... 'feed?' 'starving gnawing won't stop' 

'so aLone' 'save me? take me away' 'help me'   
'help me a nail a knife help me not be here' 'kill me please. please. please. Please.'   
'i am william theodore spears DO NOT FORGET i am william theodore spears  
i am william theodore spears   
i am william theodore speam  
i am william theodore spears   
i am will i liam   
william teodoer speers  
i llliam thears????  
?????? ??????   
im sorry im so   
sory  
kill it'

Near the end, the square prison trapped his mind up and William lay there on the ground, worn to nothing but bone and tight skin, while the bugs crawled over him and the worms writhed inside him even though he wasn't quite dead yet.   
He had forgotten his name; William Theodore Spears was a strange-sounding word he had whispered to himself so many times it no longer had any meaning. 

With the last of his strength, he crawled over to the alcove where Miss Honeybear lay rotting and sprouting fungus. He pressed her to his cheek, and he swore he could feel a hug from Michael stored inside that had been long, long forgotten...whoever that was. And then the spiders consumed him. 

William died there in that tiny alcove, clutching the mangy toy to his cheek. He decomposed and his child skeleton remained there until, years later, its owner found it again. 

\---

"I'm going to need you to take deep breaths for me, Ronald. In and out. In and out." 

Ronald sat shivering where William had placed him. They were no longer on a glass covered wooden floor but on soft, comfortable carpet. 

It took Ronald a few good minutes to calm down. After he had signed his name (as close as Roonal RnoX came to being his name) William had simply dragged him through a portal and dumped him on a carpet in front of a fireplace. Ronald didn't care where he was then, anywhere being better than the storm, but now...he was curious.

"Is...is this your house, Will?" he asked hoarsely, sniffling. It had to be. It was expensive and impeccably maintained. 

"That's correct," William said curtly, removing his shoes and jacket then bringing Ronald a lovely fluffy blanket to hold around himself. "Give me your hands," he ordered as he dropped a first aid kit down beside him. 

"Um...alright?" Ronald mumbled, offering his bloody, glass-splintered hands to William. It did not surprise him when the man began picking out glass shards that were practically invisible and stitching up the deeper cuts with the professional skill of a surgeon. 

A million questions were running through Ronald's head, yet it was William who was the first to break their awkward silence.   
"My middle name...It really is Thomas," he said without looking up. "I changed it myself, the day I qualified officially as a Junior Reaper. It had been Theodore all my life up until that point."

"What made you change it?" Ronald asked softly, wincing a little as William pulled a stitch thread. 

"When my soul was invaded by the soul of Thomas Wallis," William explained. "He left a massive imprint on me, and...it felt right. I wanted to honour him. And I did it as a way to try and leave my human life behind...start anew."   
Ronald squirmed a little as William worked, watching the way his dark fringe hung in front of those bright green eyes, eyes focused sharply on the surgery. It made Ronald's heart beat a little faster. 

"So...you know that I know," the blond mumbled. 

"Simply put, yes," William returned, cutting the last thread and beginning to bandage his hands even though they both knew that after an hour or so, those wounds would heal. 

"Well-- about...about Michael," Ronald said tentatively, "I was really upset and I said--"

"It doesn't bother me what you think," William interrupted. "My memories are my own, no matter who tries to replicate them. I'm the only one who can understand. Besides...it's not as if you were… incorrect."

Then he left to make tea, and a sweet old dog came trotting into the room. This must be Niets! thought Ronald, giving the speckled dog a happy scratch behind his ear. Niets promptly seated himself in Ronald's lap. 

Ronald had heard about Niets from a few guys standing one day admiring the way William was shaping up those new recruits.  
Niets was a starving, arthritic waif of a mutt that William had come across in the streets one day, adopted and raised to health. And now Ronald fully understood why William took him in; not just because he inwardly had a kind heart and a soft spot for animals, but because he had been a starving waif too.

"You no doubt think I came after you because unsupervised Junior Reapers on Collection without an official permit is against regulations," said William when he returned and gave Ronald his tea.   
"Well, it's....half right. I mean...it's not that you weren't ready, I just.." Ronald was smiling. 

"You remember every word someone says to you. You remembered yesterday amidst all my bloody rambling when I said I was afraid of storms."   
William bristled uncomfortably, wanting to snap at him or lie. But it was time to stop pushing people away. 

"'Everyone has their thing', I believe you so eloquently put it. When you died... there had been a thunderstorm that night. I remember because I was there." 

"You were the one resurrecting me," Ronald said softly.   
"And you were the one who punched me in the face," William recalled, making Ronald flush. "Anyway...I came after you, not to save you..."

"...But to make me save myself," Ronald finished. "Otherwise...how would I grow? And because no one ever saved you, even though you suffered more than anyone should ever have to."  
William focused on drinking his tea, not used to the way Ronald was commandeering the conversation.

"But you were still at my side the whole time," Ronald told his boss. "It's okay to have someone to lean on. It's okay to trust. If you had someone like that, you wouldn't be hurting so much when no one else is around."

William huffed.

"You know, you destroyed the letters my father wrote to me," he said solemnly. "And that was all I had left of him." Ronald bowed his head guiltily.   
"I know, I'm the worst--" he started, but William quickly cut off his self-deprecation. 

"The reason I took Thomas's name was to leave my past behind, Ronald. And by keeping those letters all these years, that choice came to nothing."  
Ronald blinked, unsure if he was still being scolded or not. 

"But then you destroyed them. There's nothing left now and you made it that way. At first, I despaired, and I was lost. Then today I realized...it meant I had to move on with life." William paused to adjust his glasses, exhaling slowly. 

"Ronald...You made it clear you wanted to be friends. If you think I should have someone to trust, I thought perhaps it should be the person who set me on this path. Someone who...knows the truth."

There was a brief silence between them before Ronald finally responded.   
"Look, Will...I'm gonna be honest with you. I don't really wanna be friends." 

It was almost worth it to see how scarlet in the cheeks William went.   
"Huh!" 

Ronald quickly broke into gentle laughter. "Aw, Will. Sorry, that was mean of me. I mean...I don't want to be /just/ friends..." 

William blinked. Now it was Ronald's turn to go bright red. 

"I liked you even before I heard your story. But now I feel like I know you so intimately. Even as an adult, you've struggled so much but always come through. You're an inspiration to me, and not in the hero-worship sorta way. I've kinda always had a drinking problem," he confessed quietly, trembling with nerves.  
"I think I'm ready to tackle it now. And yeah, it's gonna be my fight, but...I'd sure as hell like it if you were by my side." 

He finally looked up at William, who looked unusually flustered for such a composed man.   
"And here I was just surprised to learn you weren't straight," William eventually mumbled, adjusting his glasses 5 or 6 times. 

Ronald laughed nervously. "Another dumb thing I hide from people, I guess," he muttered. "So what do you say?"   
William thought deeply for a moment, then gave a small nod. Ronald extended his hand, though William drew back quickly. "I don't like being touched."

The blond went red with embarrassment, until he saw William pull on his leather gloves and reach for Ronald's hand again.   
"It will take a while, but...I can learn you, if that's what you want."

Ronald positively beamed, wrapping his hands around William's. "Absolutely, however long it take-- O-ow!"

"Careful of your stitches, Ronald. /Honestly/."

\---

The soul of William T. Spears was powerful. It had no desire to be catalogued.   
"Eheehee...the more tortured the soul, the better, in my humble opinion... You're going to make a strong reaper, little child~" 

But the staff running the Resurrection Ward of the London Reaper Hospital were not so sure.   
This resurrected child was catatonic, bordering comatose. Yet, if a shinigami as world-renowned as the Undertaker was vouching, they would do their best to bring the soul around.   
It took years before William was responsive, and his very first words were of his father. 

By way of magic (that is, extremely complicated science) William's corporeal body was painstakingly aged to that of an adult, but the problems didn't end there. 

They had a man with a tortured mind and broken body, a man completely consumed by obsessive-compulsive disorder who couldn't stand to be touched. They had a man who did not eat, or rather, he couldn't stand to, the psychological trauma behind starvation was too severe and he always threw up.  
Yet a silver-haired man always came by to check on William's progress, if from the shadows, and approve the work of the psychiatric staff. 

Finally, William became stable enough to be moved to outpatient status, and from there he adjusted to Reaper life, bit by bit. 

6 months worth of abuse in his childhood literally took centuries to suitably repair.   
William succumbed to his eating disorder more than once, but always beat it back, and finally he stopped going back to the hospital.   
He had become a man who had been given another chance and didn't want help anymore. He was determined to become the great Shinigami that his mentor, the Undertaker, had always been confident that he would be. 

At the start of the 1800s, William had gone back to the house his uncle lived in. It still stood, rotting and dilapidated though it was.   
Morris Fischer had been haunted by the memories of what he'd done, swearing that William's ghost was after him, though it was only the guilt in his own subconscious. Eventually it became too much and Morris hanged himself in the kitchen.

Reaper William T. Spears went down to that basement. Though he had initially regressed and panicked at the memories, he soon had his own skeleton removed, and then burned the house to the ground with his bare hands. 

His remains buried by the seaside, on a cliff. His grave was placed right next to his father's, the grave of Michael Theodore Spears, a brave soldier who had been killed in battle. William was able to forgive him, once he understood. He /knew/ Michael loved him. Michael thought of him every day, and wrote dozens of letters. He had always, always loved William. 

His mother was in a simple cemetery in London. Her death was by pancreatic cancer. William had been enlightened as to why she had sent her only son off to die; she believed she was doing the right thing. And yet...William didn't think he could ever fully forgive her.  
Nonetheless, she had told him to become a strong, courageous man, and William had done that for her. 

And in the case of Miss Honeybear, William took her eyes and had them sewn into a new teddy, so that if he ever somehow experienced the joys of parenthood, that child would have love wherever they went.

\---

"I haven't been so well, lately," William finally confessed in the darkness to Ronald. It always crept up on him, the inability to eat. And with that came the exhaustion, the fatigue, the irritability.   
The blond pressed his body to William’s chest, wrapped in a sheet so the touch would not make his partner uncomfortable.   
He understood what William was trying to say. 

"That's okay," he returned with a soft smile. "I'm going to help you fight. You are loved, Will. You are loved."

He kissed William's cheek (the maximum allowed time was 3 seconds) and smiled down at him. William looked up at him and managed a tiny smile in return.   
Rain pounded against the roof, and thunder growled outside, but Ronald felt safe with William, and to him...that trust meant everything. 

x

The child skeleton of William Spears lay interred beside the skeleton of his father. The two of them were together; that was the way it should be.   
But the William that existed now had to move on and learn to love for real. 

With Ronald, that felt like a real possibility. 

Finally, William closed his eyes, and he dreamt he was waving goodbye to somebody.  
That man waved goodbye too, and there was a tiny child at his side, just smiling back.


End file.
